Mobile technology is making it easier than ever for people to research products and connect with businesses while they’re on the go. But we all know that sometimes it helps to speak to a real person before making a purchase decision. In fact, research shows that 52% of smartphone users have called a business after looking for local information on their mobile devices. Calls are key in helping consumers connect with businesses in the digital age, so incorporating a click-to-call strategy on mobile is crucial for any company that does business over the phone.Companies big and small have put click-to-call functionality front and center in their mobile ads to reach customers on the go, and have seen impressive results. For instance, Comcast incorporated click-to-call ads into their mobile strategy, and now find mobile drives more than 10% of online sales. Esurance also reduced their cost per acquisition by 20-30% compared to other channels by using Google mobile ads with click-to-call. With more than 20 million calls made through Google click-to-call ads each month, it’s clear that mobile works when driving calls to businesses. In fact, our studies have shown that adding Call Extensions to mobile ad campaigns have improved advertisers’ average click-through rates by about 6-8%.But as any business knows, getting customers to call is only half the battle. That’s why we’ve invested in features like Google call forwarding numbers, which show detailed reporting on calls generated from your ad campaign such as call start and end time, duration and caller area code. Having this valuable information can help advertisers understand how effective their ad campaigns are at driving calls as well as the quality of those calls. Advertisers using Google call forwarding numbers see calls last over six minutes on average.We’re working hard to continually improve the click-to-call experience for advertisers and consumers. Here are a few of the things that our team has recently been hard at work on:

Click-to-call button - We recently introduced a new click-to-call button for ads leveraging Call Extensions, which people can easily tap to call businesses. Early results indicate that this new design positively impacts advertiser click-through rates and call volume.

Expanding availability of Google call forwarding numbers - We’re also focused on bringing Google call forwarding numbers to more advertisers so they can better measure the full value that mobile is driving through calls. Already available in US and UK, we recently expanded availability to Germany and plan to expand availability to additional countries in the coming months.

Call Extensions for in-app ads - We also recently introduced Call Extensions for ads showing in apps on the Google Display Network. Now in addition to click-to-call ads across the mobile web, advertisers can also drive calls from ads in more than 300,000 mobile apps.

New click-to-call button

If you haven’t yet tried Call Extensions in your mobile campaigns, you can find instructions for enabling in our Help Center. We will also be hosting a webinar on December 5th focused on tracking call performance in your AdWords campaigns. To register for this webinar, click here.Posted by Anurag Agrawal, Product Manager, Mobile Search Ads